Arjan van de Ven wrote:
I don't want to start an argument about "stable_api_nonsense" or
the wisdom of out-of-tree drivers. Just curious about the - why -
and whether it is indifference or antagonism toward drivers outside
the fold. Or ???
Hi,
in general the best approach has been to make the driver support the
NEW interface, and then do some compat thing to fake the old one. The
other way around is going to be MUCH more painful long term. So as
general rule: always follow the latest API, and use a compat.h hack
for older kernels inside your driver, but keep the normal code clean.
It's not always easy, but keeping old API and faking it to the new
one is only going to be really really painful; things will deviate
more and more over time and at some point you'll have to jump anyway.
Good point. I actually try to do it that way. Should have said
#ifndef NEW_INTERFACE
...
In addition quite a few api changes are done in a way that make this
less painful than the other way around..
The other part of the question is why this irq_handler prototype change
in 2.6.19 isn't flagged to make things a little easier.
however in general really there is pain to be out-of-tree; and to
some degree that's an incentive to merge back :)
No argument, but I don't have the stamina to try to get my 10+ year
old code out of the public domain and into the main line :)
Many thanks for your reply,
Bill
--
--------------------------------------------
William D Waddington
Bainbridge Island, WA, USA
[email protected]
--------------------------------------------
"Even bugs...are unexpected signposts on
the long road of creativity..." - Ken Burtch
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